Desperate measures

At least some of you know I'm not a fan of alternative treatments, or supplements of any kind. Few if any None have shown to be effective by any legitimate clinical research. In my opinion they are just scams designed to separate gullible and desperate individuals from their hard earned money. But I've also never criticized anyone for trying them.

Ok, so maybe I have criticized the lengths some people will go in their use of alternatives treatments. I can certainly understand the desperation of some people, but when I read a post such as the one below, from one of the many lymphoma/leukemia message boards I subscribed to, I can't help but be reinforced in my belief of the lunacy and the futility of it all, as well as the potential danger.

Dear List Members,

I receive[d] my shipment of Essiac tea and made my first batch.

The taste is like bad coffee--not too bad. With this particular formula, you consume the grounds along with the tea. Since the teas is pulverized into fine powder, this is not a problem at all.

I started with the recommended dose of 3 oz 3 times a day.

That's comes to about $128/month. By comparison, I spend about $25 per month on green tea, but at least it doesn't taste like bad coffee. Plus I wouldn't put it in the same category as this garbage.

Anyways, he goes on.

After two days, the lymph nodes in my neck increased in size very dramatiically and painfully. Plus new lymph nodes were popping up under my arms. I found the lymph node enlargement alarming since they rarely ever change size and when they do, not by much.

Lymph node involvement has been present since the beginning albeit at a low level of enlargement. Then I found myself waking up in the middle of the night with the lymph nodes in my neck hurting like hell. I should point out that the nodes on the left side were much more pro- nounced than on the right. The pain would only subside once I got up, and moved around. I'm not much into prescription pain killers and really had nothing on hand to dull or extinguish the pain which was quite severe.

This has continued every night since. About the only thing that quiets the pain is to put a north facing magnet over the area and wait. Eventually, if I'm lucky, the pain subsides enough for me to go back to bed.

A north facing magnet! Unreal! I wonder if he has to sleep facing north as well? Well, if you think that really works, I've got some swamp land to sell you in Arizona.

My hematologist/oncologist has not seen me since this happened though I did have a blood test on Friday. Don't know the results yet.

In trying to figure out what happened, I came to a few tentative conclusions. Essiac is a powerful detoxifier and immune stimulant, particularly, stimulating b and t cells. I believe that the detoxifying effect temporarily overloaded an already clogged up lymphatic system and whatever garbage was collected had no place to go, and not enough fully functioning immune cells to clear away the debris, in addition to adding more lymphocytes to the overall load.

Oh yeah, I'm sure that's the reason. NOT!

The lesson here I believe is to go slow with the Essiac at first, depending on how advanced your leukemia is and how enlarged your lymph nodes are.

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? HE'S STILL CONTINUING TO USE THIS STUFF.

Is there a remedy, once the lymph nodes have reacted and are now painfully enlarged? I believe there is. It is a very simple, even elegant solution: rebounding.

I have started health bounces on my well-constructed mini-trampoline for 10 minutes at a time, 3 times a day and am already seeing improvement in shrinking the lymph nodes in my neck that are causing me so much pain. I don't have the expertise or the time to explain how and why this works. For the insatiably curious, I recommend you Google Albert E. Carter and go from there.

Bouncing on a trampoline is going to reduce the size of lymphnodes. He's got to be kidding.

Will post again when there is any new to report.

I can hardly wait, so I will have something else to write about.

And now that I think about it [and just so I get my US health care rant in for the day], could the reason people go to such extremes, be the result of our dysfunctional health care system, or is it just there are way too many stupid and gullible people in this country.

The green tea phenomenon

Despite being a heavy drinker of green tea since my diagnosis, mainly for its cancer prevention, and hopefully cancer curing qualities, I recently have developed a new found enthusiasm for green tea. Now whether it has been the green tea I have been drinking for the past 6+ years, my heavy exercise routine, or just pure chance that has kept my MCL stable, or at least [very] slow progressing, for the past 7+ years is certainly open to debate, but based on past research, I have chosen to believe green tea has at least helped to some degree. So what has given me this new found enthusiasm? Well, a friend of mine, and cycling buddy, was recently diagnosed with bladder cancer, and knowing my daily regimen called to ask my advice on green tea. He had already done a lot of research on the subject, so when I told him my obsession with green tea consisted principally of drinking the least expensive, decaffeinated green tea available (Trader Joe's brand of 18 tea bags for $3, and more recentl...

When is enough, enough?

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Alternative treatment blowback

I received some interesting criticism the other day for my stance on alternative therapies. I ......... cannot for the life of me understand why you would not use supplementation and then use an over the counter poisonous liquid which has proven liver toxicity. Especially while taking a statin. She was referring to the use of an over the counter cough medication, I have been taking to help ease the symptoms of my upper respiratory infection. I did this once and vow to never use it again! I have gotten off Lipitor by using Nicotinic Acid and getting much better results but still use COQ10 to protect Liver as you must do while taking Statins. If you are not using CoQ10, I urge you to research this issue. MCL reduces your D3 and should be taken everyday! I use 5000mgs a day. I was sorta taken aback. She was partially correct. I'm against taking supplements, but when necessary I don't have a problem taking over the counter medication, when my ailments finally get the better of me. ...

Becky said…

Sadly, if this weren't actually true it would be almost comical.

And why north with the magnet?

1:37 PM

Hey, you have got to Google North facing magnets. They even have magnetic beds! Apparently my friends schizophrenic dad was really on to something when he placed magnets all over his body.

1:42 PM

Marc said…

The really tragedy is when you consider the alternative, i.e. conventional therapy [AKA chemotherapy], you can't help but [almost] empathize with them.

7:34 AM

LIVING WITH MCL

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